“Often, most cases are suspected cases, with fewer confirmed cases. Patients with symptoms are asked to go for further tests, and this takes time. By the time a good number of confirmed cases are collected, the disease has spread rapidly. From a public health perspective, this is just not good enough. We need to catch it at the out-patient care level, restrict spread to clusters and deliver a cure before it grows into a wider geographical spread.
The al-Assad government in Syria appears to be responding to the use of ICTs by citizens unhappy with the political status quo more intelligently than its fallen counterpart in Egypt. The Syrian government is cracking down on protesters’ use of social media and the Internet to promote their rebellion just three months after allowing citizens to have open access to Facebook and YouTube, according to Syrian activists and digital privacy experts. Security officials are moving on multiple fronts — demanding dissidents turn over their Facebook passwords and switching off the 3G mobile network at times, sharply limiting the ability of dissidents to upload videos of protests to YouTube, according to several activists in Syria. And supporters of President Bashar al-Assad, calling themselves the Syrian Electronic Army, are using the same tools to try to discredit dissidents. In contrast to the Mubarak government in Egypt, which tried to quash dissent by shutting down the country’s entire Internet, the Syrian government is taking a more strategic approach, turning off electricity and telephone service in neighborhoods with the most unrest, activists say.
LIRNEasia Senior Research Fellow, Payal Malik, recently spoke the 2011 WSIS Forum, entitled, ‘Measuring the ICT sector for policy analysis‘ held on the 17th of May in Geneva. The session aimed to provide a brief overview of recent activities of the Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development, including a progress report on e-government indicators. It also looked at the emerging issues to be included in its work agenda to advance ICT measurement. Payal presented her research on ICT Statistics in India for Policy Analysis. This research was carried out by Orbicom, UQAM, Montreal and funded by IDRC.
A LIRNEasia research paper examining the potential demand and use of mobile phones for remitting money between migrant workers and their beneficiaries has been published in the latest issue of Info (Vol 13, Issue 3). The paper is authored by Nirmali Sivapragasam, Aileen Aguero (DIRSI) and Dr. Harsha de Silva. The paper is based on findings from LIRNEasia‘s Teleuse@BOP3 study. The paper can be downloaded here.
The results of the newest TRE survey conducted by LIRNEasia are out. We started the survey since before the start of LIRNEasia and have improved it since. The results were released in Dhaka, Bangladesh, at a well attended media event on 12 May 2011. The centerpiece was the sector performance report on Bangladesh by Faheem Hussain, Ph.D.
The Sri Lankan procedures for paying traffic fines are so annoying and time-consuming that they drive offenders to pay bribes instead. Now it appears that a bank and a mobile operator are trying to solve the problem. All strength to their elbows. A leading bank and a mobile company would introduce a technology when one was charged with traffic law violation could pay the fine through his/her mobile phone, sources said. Informed sources told Daily Mirror that any one charged with a traffic law violation could SMS the bank asking it to credit the amount specified as the fine to the post office account from his account.
People are trying to figure the meaning of Microsoft buying Skype. So are we. Let the conversation begin. Wireless carriers now funnel voice and data traffic over two separate networks and charge customers accordingly. In the not-so-distant future, analysts and industry executives say, all mobile services, including text messages and voice and video calls, will travel over data networks.
Last week, b-mobile subscribers in Bhutan received a message that cell broadcasting had been enabled on the system. It was the same week LIRNEasia recommended that cell broadcasting was the best option for effecting public warning in the mountainous country that is vulnerable to massive flash floods known as Glacial Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs).
One cannot talk about broadband these days without Australia’s massive taxpayer-funded national broadband scheme coming up. In an otherwise interesting and informed discussion of the pros and cons, Ian McAuley confuses the debate by conflating access networks, which will for the most part be wireless, and backhaul networks which will for the most part be fiber. The fourth myth is that “the Internet is becoming a wireless internet”, to quote Malcolm Turnbull, who appeared on the program with his nifty little wireless tablet computer. The claim is disingenuous, and Turnbull, of all people, knows the limits of wireless technology. Bandwidth is limited, and what works today for a few users will become the Internet equivalent of road gridlock in just a few years.
The moderator of the DRR lecture and panel and leading science writer Nalaka Gunawardene has written about the discussion at the DRR lecture. More than 200 small dams did breach during those rains, causing extensive damage to crops and infrastructure. The most dangerous form of breach, the over-topping of the earthen dams of large reservoirs, was avoided only by timely measures taken by irrigation engineers — at considerable cost to those living downstream. This irrigation emergency was captured by a local cartoonist: the head in this caricature is that of the minister of irrigation. In early February, Sri Lanka announced that it will expand its dam safety programme to cover more large reservoirs and will ask for additional funding from the World Bank following recent floods.
When we started on measuring broadband quality back in 2007 along with our colleagues from IIT Madras, there was little else beside speedtest. Then the FCC got on the bandwagon. Now another tool. Everyone talks about being more customer-centric these days. And the incentive for focusing on customers is growing in part because customers are becoming more empowered by technology than ever – even when it comes to things like guaranteeing broadband connectivity levels.
LIRNEasia‘s continuing work on the role of ICTs, and in particular mobiles, in improving the livelihoods of the rural poor, was recently published as a chapter in an IDRC publication called “Strengthening Rural Livelihoods – the impact of information and communication technologies in Asia.” The chapter titled “Price transparency in agricultural produce markets: Sri Lanka” covered the results from a year long study of the livelihood impacts for farmers from using a mobile-based price information service called Tradenet. The chapter was co-authored by LIRNEasia researchers Sriganesh Lokanathan, Harsha de Silva and Iran Fernando.
How much the internet contributes to an economy? We find specific answers from the West but the Asians remain mum on this important issue. Because, no Asian country has conducted any study in this regard. Google Hong Kong has, however, broken the silence and engaged Boston Consulting Group to study the impact of internet in Hong Kong’s economy. It has found the internet has pumped over HK$ 96 billion ($12.
Television, also known as the second screen, is declining in terms of ownership in America. Thanks to the digital revolution, as the New York Times reports quoting Nielsen. It suggests two reasons. One is poverty: some low-income households no longer own TV sets, most likely because they cannot afford new digital sets and antennas. The other is technological wizardry: young people who have grown up with laptops in their hands instead of remote controls are opting not to buy TV sets when they graduate from college or enter the work force, at least not at first.
Today is World Press Freedom Day, archaically named by UNESCO, an archaic organization. I was invited as one of the speakers by the Sri Lanka Press Institute for their event commemorating the World Press Freedom Day. I talked about ICTs and the Arab Spring. The most interesting part of the discussion was the attempt by various speakers to define new media. The moderator thought that LBO.
A decade ago, not having a phone was normal. Now it’s abnormal. Indian media highlight the absence of connectivity as one of the clues that identified Osama bin Laden’s hideout in a Pakistani suburb. A large mansion in a massive compound with 12 feet to 18 feet tall walls topped with barbed wire. No telephone or internet connection to the house.